Thursday, February 1, 2018

Steven Greenberg sits on top of the WPT Borgata Winter Poker Open Championship leaderboard after the event’s Day 3 of play. The self-proclaimed recreational player bagged 3.573 million last night after a terrific run throughout the day during which he won a ton of important hands.

Greenberg has been playing here and there around the US for the past 15 years. His HendonMob profile shows that he has cashed in 12 live tournaments so far. Talking to WPT staff, the player said that he has been popping into different events from time to time, although he revealed that being the head of a six-member family makes it more difficult for him to play the game as often as he wishes.

Of his performance on Day 3, Greenberg said that he was “catching hands” all day long, which helped him build the solid stack he ended the day with. At one point, he knocked a couple of fellow players to cement his leading position.

Over the years, Greenberg has come very close to winning WSOP Circuit events, but has ended up in second place eventually. As for his performance in WPT tournaments, the payout he locked in the ongoing WPT Borgata Winter Poker Open is his first one from the series.

Day 3 Action Recap

The $3,500 buy-in tournament’s Day 3 kicked off with 159 players. The remaining contenders were just three eliminations away from bursting the money bubble. Konstantinos Koufalis and Jonas Wexler busted simultaneously to become the unfortunate bubble boys.

This year, the Borgata Winter Poker Open Championship attracted a field of 1,244 entries, who generated a prize pool of nearly $4 million, thus exceeding the guaranteed prize pool of $3 million. The top 157 are paid, with min-cashes starting from $3,065.

The winner is set to take home a nice payout of $651,928, including a $15,000-worth automatic entry into the season-ending WPT Tournament of Champions. Each of the six players who will make it to the official final table are guaranteed a minimum payout of $138,254.

Of all 159 who entered Day 3 of play, only 27 made it through the whole day and bagged for the night. They are set to resume play at the Borgata Casino in Atlantic City today at noon local time. The players will play down to the official final table.

Greenberg and each of his colleagues are guaranteed a min-cash of $19,347 at this point in play. As mentioned above, Greenberg is leading the pack of 27. However, Chase Bianchi, a high-stake cash game player and a former WSOP gold bracelet winner, is trailing closely behind with a stack of 3.698 million. The two players were the only to go beyond the three-million mark last night.

Former WPT champions Kevin Saul, Jonatan Little, Eric Afriat, and David Paredes are also still in contention, eying another title from the Main Tour of the popular poker series.